


Rose: Breathe

by ticklishivories



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 03:58:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1154612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ticklishivories/pseuds/ticklishivories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short drabble about nightmares and how John helps Rose deal with them.</p>
<p>-<br/>Breath is scarce, breath is precious, breath is life. His life. He breathes life into me when I can't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rose: Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> Really, I had intended this to be fluffy and cute with kisses and cuddles, and this has that, but like with everything else i touch it did not come out exactly how I wanted. Bah.

 

Most nights are uneventful. Quiet, calm. Peaceful. I take Rose to bed and she falls easily into my arms. Sometimes I join her by her side with a book while she knits. On these nights she ignores my presence completely. She barely spares me a glance, even when I’m pulling her into my lap, and I take her hands away from her needles to kiss the tips of her fingers.  Rose would sigh, smile, and continue her knitting. I am content with holding her.

Actually, every night is like this. Full of her teasing, bickering, her kisses, her love. That’s what makes them so unpredictable.

It happens when the entire world has turned their lights out. When everything is so silent your ears ring, and the emptiness weighs down on your body like hands pushing your chest into the mattress. I used to sleep well on these nights. Now, I drift in and out of awareness. For her sake.

Most nights, she sleeps like the dead till morning. This is not one of those nights.

4:07 am. I hear a quiet whimper from beside me, like the sound of a beaten dog. It tugs at my chest until I am fully awake, and I know I can’t go back to sleep anymore. I sit up and rub my eyes. The sound comes again. It’s louder.

“Rose,” I grunt, trying to speak over my sleepy tongue. No response comes. I reach over to turn on the bedside lamp. Dim light floods our small bedroom.

I look at my lover. She is faced away from me, but I know that her brow is furrowed and her lips are quivering. Her hair is so blond my eyes have to adjust to look at it. Her bare shoulders tremble.

I place my hand on her shoulder and feel sweat stick my skin to hers. I shake her gently.

“Rose, wake up.” I say it softly, as if I expect her to wake with only the quiet call. I am lucky if she ever wakes up when this happens. I manage to turn her over enough so I can hold her face between my hands. At first my grip is light. She is cold and white like lifeless porcelain.

“Wake up,” I urge more firmly.

For two seconds, two long, agonizing seconds, I think she has heard me. Her eyelids flicker and open. I smile at her as relief soothes my beating heart. Then she freezes. Rose’s breath shudders from her lips, and then ceases completely. Her body tenses like stone, like diamond. I try to massage the stiffness from her jaw.

“Rose, wake up!” I shout at her. No matter how many times this happens, my voice still cracks with fear. I watch as my Rose, fearless as a burning flame but delicate as the petals of a flower, comes undone right underneath me.

Like always, I keep calling out to her, and like always she never answers. Her supple lips fade from a soft pink to a grim blue.

“No, no no no no....”

I break into a sweat. My eyes scan her face as if searching for help. Though my outer appearance is panicked, inside my senses are sharpened and my thoughts are clear and aligned. I press my hands on her chest and concentrate.

I don’t know how long this has been happening. The cause could have been the game. Maybe this was happening before. We won, and everything was perfect for all of three days. That’s when she had her first nightmare. We weren’t together at the time, but we might as well have been. She woke up screaming, and I came running to bring her back down to me.

She won’t tell me what they’re about, but I know they’re getting worse. It’s only recently that she stopped breathing. Using my powers after the game ended is so difficult. I can help her, but not without significant emotional and physical draining.

Rose is choking on invisible hands. I’m trying to focus on every cell in her body, every pocket of oxygen in her blood. I’m still not concentrating hard enough. Her eyes are open and blood shot but she sees nothing. Tears spill in streams down her cheeks. She would be screaming if there were anything left in her. I have a terrible feeling I’m calling to her over and over, but I can’t hear myself over my own blood pounding in my ears. It takes everything I have to channel all of my energy into her.

I straddle her hips, making sure not to rest all my weight on her. Her face has flushed a frightening shade of purple. I close my eyes.

I can count, each and every cell in her body. I can feel the blood pumping through her veins, and the oxygen that it carries from her head to her toes. I can sense the tightness in her chest, how her lungs struggle to expand under a crushing nonexistent weight, and it hurts me, it makes me want to fight the demons with her but I can’t, I can only to this.

Out of habit, I bend down and kiss the corner of her mouth. She’s shaking. I know she’s fighting. I let out a deep breath, firmly wrap my consciousness around every cell inside her, and breathe in.

Color pours into her face like a flooded reservoir. Her chest expands and her eyes flicker into focus. I tighten my hold on her and try to stay focused as my relief attempts to shake my resolve. She looks at me. I know she can see me now. She knows what I’m doing. And she knows it’s not over yet.

Rose takes a weak, trembling hand, and holds it over my own placed over her chest. I nod, close my eyes, and breathe in deeply again.

She is able to breathe with me this time. Her lips part, and she sighs, and oxygen must feel so good after being deprived of it so long. Her cheeks are pinking and her body is relaxing.

“John-” It’s choked and slightly forced.

“Shh, not yet.”

My grip on her is slipping. I know she’s okay now, she’s safe, and she can monitor her own breathing without my assistance. But I also know from experience that if I let her go now, she’ll fall into that cycle again, and instead of choking herself she’ll hyperventilate and pass out. I breathe in, and out. I watch her intensely as she breathes with me. She holds my gaze like I hold her breath.  In, out. In...out.

I have put my all into her. My body feels hollow and hungry. I crave oxygen myself like I crave water. I sit back, and she follows me. Her breath comes out soft and even from her nose. Though I am tired, I still pull her into my arms, just how I did before we went to bed. Her fingers spin circles on my heaving chest.

Rose doesn’t say anything. She’s sorry, I know she is. She’s trying to preserve the life that I’ve given her. I keep my hand on her chest too, my palm sliding from her neck to her stomach. I can feel the air inside her. I regulate it, out of habit. I want to keep in control. Just in case.

“...You need to sleep,” she whispers. Rose eyes stay pointedly fixed on my arm, her head tucked under my chin.

“So do you.” I intended for my voice to sound strong and assertive, but the breath that I’d been holding back came out more like a strangled wheeze. She chuckles.

My hand has placed itself on her abdomen. The sound and feeling of blood flowing evenly through her body is musical. I’m still trying to regulate it. I revel in the breath that puffs from her nose onto my collar.

Gently, she takes my hand away, and folds it up in her own. Then, her head tilts up, and she’s bringing my face down to hers. My blue eyes meet her deep lavenders.

“Sleep.”

Our lips touch, twice. I carefully push her mouth open with my thumb, and sigh more air into her. She hums. I hold her to me as I slowly begin to unwind. She has told me without speaking a word that she feels better. That I have helped. That, for another night, she will be safe. Together, we sink back down onto the mattress. She is not faced away from me this time. She is wrapped securely in my arms, murmuring something that I can’t quite hear. Promises most likely. Things like, she’ll tell me in the morning, she’s sorry, it won’t happen again, they’re getting better, really. I pet her hair and tell her I believe her. I love you, John, she says. I tell her I love her too.

Eventually we fall asleep. Soon, morning will come. Then night will fall. And then, the cycle will begin all over again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> argh it's so frustrating why can't i write hAPPY ENDINGS


End file.
